Maria Bolsinova wins prestigious prize for best dissertation

Cito graduate Maria Bolsinova was awarded the Psychometric Society Dissertation prize 2017 at the IMPS in Zurich, July 2017. This prestigious prize is awarded for the best psychometric dissertation in the world, and Bolsinova won it for her research on response times in educational measurement.

Research on response times in computer tests

For her research ‘Balancing simple models and complex reality: Contributions to item response theory in educational measurement’ Maria analysed the potential correlation between children’s response times and competences in answering questions in a computer test. She also developed a new method for reporting test scores, which provides an optimal reflection of competences. This method is an extension of the One Parameter Logistic Model (OPLM) that Cito uses to perform test and item analyses. All chapters of Bolsinova’s dissertation have already been published in prestigious journals including the British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology and Psychometrika.

World top 3 per cent

Maria Bolsinova conducted her research at Cito (Arnhem, the Netherlands) and at the University of Utrecht from 2011 to 2015. She graduated cum laude on 13 May 2016 – a distinction that only the top 3% in the world achieve. Maria has been doing post-doctoral research in the Department of Psychology, Psychological Methods, at the University of Amsterdam since the end of 2015. You can read Maria Bolsinova’s prize-winning dissertation here.